The Town of Golden is welcoming Sheelagh England as the new Water Smart Ambassador. England, a Golden resident of five years, will be spending the summer months providing Golden with free landscape and outdoor water assessments.
As part of the Columbia Basin Water Smart Charter, Golden aims to lower community-wide water consumption 20 per cent by 2015. As part of this plan, England has been made available to educate community members on how to make better use of their water.
Currently, Golden uses 1,200.8 megalitres of water per year. This equals to 1,200,000,000 litres.
The Ambassador program will be focusing on outdoor irrigation by creating a voluntary program where any residential, industrial, commercial or institution property in Golden can book a time for a free outdoor water use assessment. The program focuses on outdoor use as water use in Golden doubles in the summertime, primarily due to outdoor water use. The program will also provide indoor assessments to industrial, commercial or institution properties.
“As part of the assessment I can tell people how healthy their lawn is. I look at irrigation systems and can do tests to see if water can be used more efficiently and I can help with manual sprinklers too.”
England says that as part of the free assessment the Town will be giving out free manual timers as well. This allows the sprinkler to be shut off automatically and have no worry of when to turn the hose off as it will do so itself.
The objective of this program is to decrease water consumption as much as possible and the results will be measured in November. Starting in June, England will also begin work on assessing the various parks in Golden to see if any water savings can be made there. People may see the parks irrigation systems running at unusual times – this will be because England is performing an assessment.
“My job is to educate and inform,” says England, “during the summer I will also be riding around on my bike and if I see people who are watering outside of the bylaw restrictions I will talk to them. But my job is not enforcement.”
If you would like a free assessment of your business or home, contact England by calling the Town Office on 250-344-2271 during regular hours or email her at watersmartambassador@golden.ca.
